Here is a good idea. The New York Times reports on a school district in Arizona that has put WiFi on a single school bus serving High School students. The results have been a marked improvement in student behavior, as the bus has become a rolling study hall. Student athletes at away games use the parked bus as an Internet Café.
The Times reports that Empire High School is part of an initiative to become a "digital school" where students are issued laptops instead of textbooks. The cost of a computer is a big hurdle to getting online so that problem has been taken care of in a way that is blind to class or income. It also has the benefit of putting a computer into every household.
Only time and more experiments will tell if the Internet Bus leads to improved grades and test scores. Already though there is evidence showing that children with access to high speed Internet (broadband) do better in school. And parents like the Internet; in a poll taken Fall 2009 some 80 percent of parents said that the Internet helps children with their schoolwork.
As Congress is considering a new jobs bill maybe they should consider helping school districts around the country make this same kind of improvement. Installing Internet hubs on school buses could be a nice little job spur--broadband has been an employment bright spot in the still struggling economy. And, it would give students an immediate and tangible benefit. A big focus should also be on funds for laptops.
The policy would have to be written to be mindful of the big divides in our schools between the rich and poor districts. We want to use this to close the digital divide, not widen it. There are all sorts of progressive ways to implement such an idea too with a sliding scale of grant sizes depending on a range of factors including income of the school district. And something should be done for urban school districts where kids often walk to school instead of taking the bus.
Finally, this is certainly not an excuse or replacement for bigger policies to get more people on the Internet. But sometimes in politics and policy we need a clear and tangible idea that people can support--like getting every soldier new body armor or putting 100,000 police officers on the street.
So, how about giving every high school student a laptop and helping school districts wire their buses (as well as their schools). For years there have been people working on policies in this area -- its time to move forward. Let's keep the Internet bus rolling.
Update: I forgot to mention a post I wrote in January about advances in these mobile hubs while attending the Consumer Electronics Show.
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By Dan Hardy and Bonnie L. Cook
Inquirer Staff Writers
A Lower Merion family has set off a furor among students, parents, and civil liberties groups by alleging that Harriton High School officials used a webcam on a school-issued laptop to spy on their 15-year-old son at home.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the family said the school's assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had "engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district."
The suit contends the Lower Merion School District, one of the most prosperous and highest-achieving in the state, had the ability to turn on students' webcams and illegally invade their privacy.
While declining to comment on the specifics of the suit, spokesman Douglas Young said the district was investigating. "We're taking it very seriously," he said last night.
The district's Apple MacBook laptops have a built-in webcam with a "security feature" that can snap a picture of the operator and the screen if the computer is reported lost or stolen, Young said.
But he said "the district would never utilize that security feature for any other reason." The district said that the security system was "deactivated" yesterday, and that it would review when the system had been used.
Let's not put the cart before the horse. There are far too many people who favor gimmicks over substance. They want to concentrate all their efforts on the top 25% and forget the average student. One of this country's biggest problems is we don't put enough effort with the students in the bottom half of student quality.
It's so critically important that we, as a nation, make these types of preparations in education. I have read entirely too many articles on schools and children that don't have access to computers or the Internet. We are doing such a disservice to our community if we allow this to continue.
But, I'm fairly certain that the Republicans would reject any legislation that helped with that - and then, later, the Republican Congresspersons would crow about the 200 computers they got for their consituents.
Computers cannot help if there's no free software to help the kids learn. We all know that computer-aided learning works best. But, there is no federal program for that, is there?
Why don't you start up a fundraiser to provide these items rather than stealing it from Taxpayers.
I can't afford a computer or internet. I am typing at work right now. They have computers at school already, stop stealin my money so some kid can watch a dvd on the way to school.
Now look at rural areas. If people are limited to dial-up or DSL, that bandwidth would need dedicated sat links or fiber pushed to them. Leave rural areas out? Be serious, the ACLU would have a collective coronary.
Now we can get picky. Wi-fi locked down on the laptops mentioned in the article? Don't want kids going to porn sites at school by logging into non-secure Wifi sources near schools. 1st Amendment issue? Spend money only on newer schools, and not old ones scheduled to be closed? Not above ACLU comment. When I went to school, passing notes around was a no-no. Shut down telnet, ftp, IM and other standard protocols? Sort of against the idea of teaching kids about computers isn't it? And all the security lockdowns mentioned above. Will they work with home based networks, as I'm assuming they can be taken home for homework?
Just a few issues that someone might want to consider. I'm sure there are more.
I'm skeptical that this will work widespread. Whether the students will actually treat bus time as study hall vice social time depends more on the students than on the wi-fi.
Note that there's no reason that kids couldn't use the time on the bus to study for the past 50 years. They have backpacks and books.
I suspect that the real improvement in behavior is because the students are checking their facebook pages instead of yelling at each other.
Don't get me started on laptops and WiFi for the homeless...
Want to stimulate the economy short and long term? Education is the way to do it.